Adviser Pushes Gore to Be Leader of the Pack

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Published: November 1, 1999

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31—
Vice President Al Gore has been paying Naomi Wolf, the feminist author, thousands of dollars a month to help him figure out how to become the top dog.

Ms. Wolf has been telling Mr. Gore that he is a beta male, a subordinate figure, and must learn to become the alpha male, or leader of the pack, before the public can accept him as president, according to a report in the new issue of Time magazine.

''She's a valued adviser, and she'll remain one,'' Mr. Gore said today on the ABC News program ''This Week.'' He said Ms. Wolf was one of several campaign advisers and that she specialized in strategy and communications. He said she was working with his daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff, a law student in New York, on trying to attract women and young people to the campaign.

The magazine said that Ms. Wolf had been receiving $15,000 a month since January but that Donna Brazile, who took over as campaign manager last month, had cut her salary to $5,000 a month.

Ms. Wolf, 37, is the author of ''Promiscuities,'' a 1997 best seller recounting her sexual coming of age, as well as ''The Beauty Myth'' and ''Fire With Fire.'' She is married to David K. Shipley, a former speech writer for President Clinton and now an editor at The New York Times Magazine.

Ms. Wolf was an adviser on the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1996 and worked closely with Dick Morris, Mr. Clinton's top adviser at the time, a position that evolved into influence with the Gore campaign.

In ''Behind the Oval Office,'' his own account of that campaign, Mr. Morris credited Ms. Wolf with ideas about how to reach women who vote -- school uniforms, tax breaks for adoption and workplace flexibility -- and for ''remarkably prescient analyses of the social-cultural trends in the country.''

This included her notion that the nation was searching for a ''good-father role model,'' which Mr. Morris said helped lead to Mr. Clinton's emphasis on family issues. Part of cultivating the father image included cultivating his image as a leader, a quality that voters tell pollsters Mr. Gore lacks and one he is apparently trying to develop with Ms. Wolf's help.

Ms. Wolf does not travel much with the campaign, but she ensconced herself with a bevy of Gore advisers last week in a New Hampshire hotel to prepare the candidate for his first town meeting with former Senator Bill Bradley. Mr. Gore turned in a notably aggressive and assertive performance. On stage with Mr. Bradley for 20 minutes until the televised program was to begin, Mr. Gore initiated and controlled a discussion with the audience -- definite alpha male behavior.

Alpha males dominate and lead other members of the pack, while beta males are subordinate and play a helpmate role. According to Time, Ms. Wolf has argued within the Gore campaign that Mr. Gore ''is a 'beta male' who needs to take on the 'alpha male' in the Oval Office before the public will see him as the top dog.''

Other advisers have told Mr. Gore that he needs to separate himself from President Clinton not only to shed the image of being No. 2 but also because it would help him with female voters, who remain especially irritated with Mr. Clinton.

Mr. Gore has said he needs to establish himself as his own man but has been ambivalent about how far to go. While he says he disapproved of Mr. Clinton's extramarital behavior, he also says the president is his friend.

Photo: Naomi Wolf, a feminist author, is helping the vice president work on his image with women who vote. (Marion Ettlinger/Random House)